If a day trip to Toronto taught me anything, it’s that you just can’t plan everything.
And as much as I hate planning, I really tried.
Here’s the thing.
Toronto is an hour and a half from Niagara Falls, which isn’t a bad drive, ahem, ride. That is, unless you get caught in traffic and then you might as well double that time. TO’s traffic is horrible.
And this is coming from someone who lives 15 minutes outside of New York City.
Before entering Canada, we purchased an international plan so that we wouldn’t be hit with roaming charges. We didn’t think to grab the GPS out of the car.
We also purchased a city pass that allowed us to see five tourist attractions for one low price. Y’all know I love a good deal.
But when the data randomly stopped working, I began to worry.
At first, I thought maybe it’s not working because we are too close to the parking garage.
Nope.
Maybe it’s because we are downtown and there is some type of interruption from all the skyscrapers.
That wouldn’t make sense because we just learned that the CN tower was created to solve Toronto’s communications issues. It just doubles as a tourist attraction, which held the record for the tallest building in the world for 34 years until 2010.
I know we didn’t run out of data just yet. They said they would text us when we are halfway near our data allowance. I am calling as soon as I get home.
So there I was not panicking. Not frustrated. Struggling to pinpoint where we were from a cartoonish map we received. And he was mindlessly driving with traffic. He’s too cool.
But we managed to get to our destinations safely and we only had to turn around once.
We went to the Royal Ontario Museum, which was nice because I’ve been promised a trip to a museum since we first started talking on the phone. I’m talking way back to the days when someone had to use the phone and you’re anxiously waiting for them to hang up so that you can call right right back. You know, because your cell phone minutes weren’t free until after 9 PM.
We didn’t stay long, but it was nice looking at the Asian art work. I didn’t know Buddha is illustrated with what we know as a swastika on his chest. It means something completely different, but it was interesting to see how such a simple symbol can be turned into something so ugly. We also viewed the dinosaur collections making both of us consider seeing the new Jurassic Park movie.
Then we went to Casa Loma, a real life mansion that had secret passage ways, that made me feel like I was in a scavenger hunt. And talk about beautiful. Everything was so elaborate that I found myself paying close attention to the wood work. It was so detailed. I don’t know who used to live there, but man were they lucky.
I won’t even get into the drive back.
Woosah.
Despite the data situation, I loved Toronto. Two of my customers summed it up best “it’s like New York City, but a lot cleaner.”
Sooooo true.
Downtown is so modern. I really wish we would have thought to stay in the city overnight. But that just means we have to take another trip, right?
